Complicity in torture is a stain on the British state that even a general election, it seems, cannot wash out. Despite the coalition agreement stating unequivocally: "We will never condone torture", legal proceedings currently under way suggest British agents could still be guilty of complicity.

The allegation is that British agents, in a more subtle crime than the actual torture conducted by American officials, benefited from the blatant violations of other states. Intelligence officials gleaned information from detainees being questioned by overseas regimes whose mistreatment and torture has been well documented.

Like other violations of international law in the dirtiest moments of the so-called war on terror, there is little prospect of redress. Intelligence officers have said they were acting in accordance with official guidance, now published, defining complicity in torture in terms of a situation where officers "know or believe torture will take place".

If officers believe that official guidance absolves them, then the lawyers who gave that interpretation bear a heavy responsibility. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is judicially reviewing the guidance, argues that this threshold is too high to comply with international law. Officers should not participate in circumstances where there is a "serious risk" of torture taking place.

Complicity in torture is of course one of many violations of international law associated with the invasion of Iraq and the interrogation of detainees that followed. So again, it is right to focus not only on the politicians who ordered the invasion, but also the government lawyers who pronounced on its legality. In these terms, the most obvious culprit for having approved the legality of the war itself is Lord Goldsmith, Tony Blair's attorney-general, whose advice notoriously changed in the run-up to invasion. This issue is far from resolved and is bound to arise again this Friday when Blair is recalled to the Chilcot inquiry. Even those familiar with the details of the Blair-Goldsmith relationship confess to being in a state of confusion about Goldsmith's latest statement this week.

What is clear is that the former attorney general is substantially distancing himself from the sequence of events that preceded the decision to invade Iraq without a second UN resolution. He is styling himself as a lawyer who was simply out of the loop, rather than one willing to manipulate his opinion for the sake of political demands .

At least now the US government has reverted to a framework that respects international law, reversing the advice of six Bush-era lawyers who redrafted the rules on torture. And there is even the serious possibility that they will face criminal proceedings – although not in America, where Obama has disappointed many with his emphasis on "moving forwards", but in Spain. The six facing prosecution include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and justice department staff Jay Bybee and John Yoo, authors of the infamous advice that torture occurred only when pain was inflicted "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death".

As the Bush Six contemplate the possibility of a trial, there are obvious comparisons: while their legal opinion paved the way for US torture at Guantánamo Bay, so their British counterparts have questions to answer about their advice that proceeding despite a "serious risk" of torture was legal.

But given the lack of appetite to pursue criminal liability of politicians and lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic, hopes of genuine accountability continues to rest in the unlikely forum of Spain's Central Court Six. The very fact that submissions to that court draw on the jurisprudence of Nuremberg – the last time a significant group of lawyers were tried for their part in gross human rights violations – speaks volumes about the war on terror. In the meantime, as far as the UK's potential for ongoing complicity is concerned, correcting the legal guidance seems like a very small ask.